Antiwar Groups Launch 'March of the Dead' Protests: Cindy Sheehan Arrested; Bush Derangement Lives!

We'll be having antiwar protests all week. I'll be in Los Angeles on Wednesday to cover the ANSWER coalition's protest, "U.S./NATO Out of Afghanistan!"

We had a preview of events in August, from the New York Times, "American Antiwar Movement Plans an Autumn Campaign Against Policies on Afghanistan."

But here's today's report from This Ain't Hell ... , "Code Pink/VFP/WCW at the White House":

Not feeling the hope and change, a coalition of anti war groups marched on the White House ... I guess you could take this sign a hundred ways, but anyway you parse it, it’s a slap against the troops; It’s not a protest against Bush anymore ...

The Washington Post features a sympathetic report, naturally: "Antiwar Protesters Turn Their Sights on Obama":

Commemorating the upcoming eighth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan, a coalition of antiwar protest groups converged on the White House on Monday to urge a withdrawal from the fighting there and in Iraq.

Sixty-one people were arrested, according to protest organizers. Several hundred attended a rally at McPherson Square, which was followed by a procession to the White House.

Organized under the umbrella of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, it was the coalition's first protest of the war in Afghanistan. Antiwar organizers hope it will mark the start of a month -- and a season -- of fresh agitation, after years of seeking an end to the fighting in Iraq.

More at the link. Also, from United for Peace and Justice, "US Troops Out of Afghanistan! Change = Peace!" Also, from the National Campaign for Non-Violent Resistance, "Join us at the White House to act against the Afghanistan War!" And at Common Dreams, "Hundreds Demand End to Afghan and Iraq Wars, Close Guantanamo and Bagram, Surge Spending on Housing and Jobs, 61* Arrested at the White House."

As the “March of the Dead” wound through the crowd wearing white masks and carrying the names of dead U.S. service people and Iraqi and Afghan war victims, more than 20 people dressed at Guantanamo prisoners assembled near the White House fence. Members of “Witness Against Torture,” a group committed to the shuttering of Guantanamo and the quickly enlarging Bagram air base in Afghanistan, many chained themselves to the fence. On their backs, they wore the names of Guantanamo detainees cleared for release who remain detained under the Obama administration despite the White House’s heralded decision to shutter the prison.

The group read the names of those killed in war and newspaper accounts of U.S. bombings and their devastating consequences in Afghanistan and Iraq. Code Pink, World Can’t Wait and many others also participated in the day of action. Veterans for Peace carried large American and peace flags and processed with three coffins representing those killed in war. Each coffin was draped with a flag—America, Iraq and Afghanistan all represented. Members of the War Resisters League held a large banner than said “End the War in Afghanistan” and wore white shrouds emblazoned with the pictures of Afghan civilians.

Also, David Swanson, "We Were Arrested for Speaking."

And here's the thing: No matter how hard leftists spin these events, these aren't so much "antiwar" events as "pro-revolution" events, sponsored by neo-Stalinists and anarcho-communists. See John Tierney, "The Politics of Peace: What’s Behind the Anti-War Movement?":

The irony of the modern “peace” movement is that it has very little to do with peace—either as a moral concept or as a political ideal. Peace is a tactical ideal for movement organizers: it serves as political leverage against U.S. policymakers, and it is an ideological response to the perceived failures of American society.The leaders of anti-war groups are modern-day Leninists. As Lenin used Russian war-weariness in 1917 to overthrow the Czar, so American street revolutionaries use reactions to the war on Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein as a way to foment radical political change at home.

The current peace movement is “neo-Communist,” says David Horowitz, the onetime radical-turned-conservative. This is a revealing and accurate label. In fact, the movement is heir to the Communist Party of the United States of America(CPUSA), even though the party’s global base—the Soviet Union—no longer exists. A variety of CPUSA splinter groups claim the mantle of the Left even as they spin-off a dizzying series of front groups and issue-oriented action “committees.”

ANSWER is only the largest of these groups, which also include United for Peace and Justice, Code Pink, Not In Our Name, the Green Party and the Institute for Policy Studies. The Bush Administration’s war on terror, which includes the Iraq war, has prompted all of them to form coalitions and seek allies. Their aim is a “struggle” against “oppression” and “imperialism,” code words in the lexicon of revolutionary socialism. Not In Our Name (NION), a satellite of the Revolutionary Communist Party, decries the War on Terror as a Bush Administration ploy: “We will not stop until all of us are free from your bloodthirsty domination.”

And for the most part, these remain anti-Bush protests. It's almost like President Obama's not even in office. I'll take these nihilists more seriously when they start burning Obama in effigy.

See also, Snooper Report, "Protests Against Military Recruiters at Schools Nationwide Tomorrow."